Where We Live: Lake Maury's Noland Trail Comes Full Circle

Ask people why they live along the waterfront here, and you'll hear a lot of the same reasons.

And somewhere near the top of every list will be the 5.2-mile-long Noland Trail.

Built in 1991, improved in 1998 and still being fine-tuned as 1999 comes to an end, the rambling footpath that rings scenic Lake Maury attracts more than 150,000 runners and walkers each year - many of them from this string of prosperous houses along the James River.

Yet even the strongest of them would have trouble completing this woodland circuit without the help of an 82-year-old neighbor who didn't like turning around on his walks.

A regular rider in Mariners' Museum Park during the 1950s, Lloyd U. Noland Jr. learned to love the disconnected series of bridle trails that once snaked through the 550-acre expanse of fields and forest. He continued walking along many of the same paths even after the stable on Shoe Lane closed, forcing him to move his horses to the other side of the James River.

It wasn't until many years later, however, that Noland spoke to a museum trustee, saying he would pay to see the old, partially overgrown trail system reinvigorated and spliced together into a single, lake-circling path.

"We always had to turn around and come back," Noland says, "and I never liked to retrace my steps.

"That's what engendered those 14 bridges."

Laid out by award-winning Williamsburg architect Carlton Abbott, the reborn trail required more than $500,000 in repairs, extensions and improvements.

The current renovation project, which has focused on preventing erosion and installing an elaborate series of new signs, has cost at least $500,000 more - all of it funded by the Noland Memorial Foundation.

Noland himself still takes to the trail each Saturday and Sunday, logging as many as three miles on a regular basis.

And each Thanksgiving, he still leads visiting members of his family into the park for what has become known among the Noland clan as the "Turkey Walk."

"One of my grandsons came up with the name out of the blue one year," Noland says, "and it stuck.

"We must have been doing it for at least 20 years now - maybe longer. Everybody would be disappointed if we didn't go."